Category Archives: neuropsychology

December 22

Fatal Attraction: What is Sex and Love Addiction?

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Have you ever been in love? Has it made you do crazy things? Whether it was sending your lover bundles of flowers, stalking their social media (or stalking them in person), or boiling a rabbit in a pot of water, we’ve all been there. We know that love is enthralling. It is potent enough in […]

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October 27

The Language and Psychology of Modern “Cults”

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We use the term “cult” loosely in today’s colloquial language. Ask around, and you might hear the opinion that people who religiously attend expensive spin classes or CrossFit are in a cult. MLM’s (multi-level marketing schemes) are a cult. Academia is a cult! As a member of the cult of academia, I promise I am […]

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August 18

The Fear of Missing Out

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There is no shortage of slang to be found on the internet. In recent years, a piece of slang in the form of an acronym has piqued my interest – FOMO. This acronym stands for “fear of missing out,” and is something I am certain most people can relate to. Despite its prolific use in […]

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July 21

Media Misrepresentations of Mental Illness: Dissociative Identity Disorder

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It’s no secret that watching movies can create lasting impressions on viewers. This is true in cases of medical dramas, where viewers are introduced to rare diseases through interactions with fictional patients seeking help. It is also true of mental health conditions – both in the cases of television and movies, it has become increasingly […]

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December 17

The Big Sleep: How We Hibernate

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As December deepens, we rapidly find ourselves coming up on the first day of winter. Though winter officially begins on the 21st, many animals began their preparations for the season far earlier this year. Any birdwatcher could easily tell you that most birds migrated south a long while ago, and any hiker could tell you […]

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November 12

How Light Leads to Darkness: A Neural Link Between Nighttime Light and Depression

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Nighttime light exposure can lead to depression. A new study brings us closer to understanding why, and what we can do about it.

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October 22

The 2020 Time Vortex and other Tales of Perception

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As we approach the end of 2020, I feel time warp as I think back to the early Spring… When I was quarantined in my home, the days seemed to rush past, but I still felt stuck in a huge temporal abyss.  Looking back at that time, I don’t sense the normal pattern of memories […]

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August 06

Racism and Birth Inequities, From Biology to Society

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Image Credit: UNICEF Black mothers in the US are 3-4x more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white mothers (NPR/ProPublica).  In addition, 40.6% of Black births are preterm, compared to 33.1% of white births (CDC).  Compounding evidence suggests that the lived experience of racism in the US, rather than genetics, health behaviors (e.g. smoking), […]

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May 28

Seeing Faces?

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With the plethora of time spent confined to my home during the quarantine, I have found my attention easily drifting. One minute I’m working on my laptop, the next thing I know I’m looking at the wall. At first my mind seems to be meditatively blank, but then I see a creature lurking before me. […]

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September 05

“I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it”

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I would never have thought that an Ariana Grande song could lend itself to talking about an interesting avenue of neuroscience research. Yet the catchy phrase repeatedly featured in her most recent hit song “7 rings,” “I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it,” implicitly highlights the relationship between liking and […]

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